IDW Publishing
Writer: Donny Cates
Art: Josh Hood
Colors: Jason Lewis
Letters: AndWorld Design
Production Design: Neil Uyetake
Editors: Sarah Gaydos and Chris Cerasi
Publisher: Ted Adams
Star Trek is created by Gene Roddenberry.
By James Shaw
(The Wind Up Geek)
The Story: This Star Trek one-shot takes place in the Star Trek: The Next Generation timeline where sometime in the past, instead of the Vulcans making first contact with Zefram Cochrane human race after the defeat of the Borg by Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D, it is the Romulans. It is this point human history deviates from the TNG storyline. Humans are enslaved and mankind never reaches the stars outside their own galaxy. The story starts in an altered TNG timeline with familiar faces (William Riker, Deanna Troi, Worf, Geordi LaForge, and Data) escaping from their Romulan captors.
The Good: My connection to Star Trek was lost long ago. I’ve always been a Star Wars fan more so than one of Star Trek. When Paramount had turned Gene Roddenberry’s creation into a straight up action film than one about growing as human beings by exploring the stars, that child who read the early Gold Key and Marvel issues and saw the first three theatrical films in a row, had all but vanished. But this is the first issue of Star Trek I’ve bought off the stands since the late 1990’s and it’s given me something to smile about.
by Ed Sum
The Vintage Tempest
From time to time, James Shaw’s suggestions in what comic book to read (however old it may be) will catch my interest. This title released last year, March 2017, and I finally found a copy to read. I like this line of “What-if” comics since it reminds me of Marvel’s take with many of their story arcs. To learn other companies have followed suit has me interested in keeping an eye out for the trade paperback compilations during Emerald City Comic Con 2018.
The Bad: Usually, I do not care for Star Trek comics. Like James, those Gold Keys have a special place in my heart. I had a bad experience when these comics made a comeback and I mistakenly picked up a holiday special. A consistent problem I find is with the artistic talents hired to handle a franchise. Do they even care about the series they are assigned to work on? Not all of them can translate the likenesses of the performers into a drawn from without looking incredibly stilted. This comic almost has the same problem and despite this flaw, I found the story more than engaging enough (I love the Mad Max look) to overlook this problem.
This comic has some fine story-boarded action. Writer Donny Cates effectively has me hearing Jonathan Frakes voice in my head as Riker expounds on hope and humanity’s future. The comic book world fills a niche the new series, Discovery, does not always fulfill. It offers to readers a chance to continue to enjoy adventures of their favourite series.
The Future: These Deviations one-shots are certainly worth exploring. A bit of investigation revealed that IDW Publishing does not always annually publish these What if tales. I hope that an anthology compendium will be offered as I’m now intrigued by what this company can offer, especially when they now have a massive number of licensed franchises to work with.
Trying to find these books, like Ghostbusters and X-Files, is tough since not everything stays on shelves for long before being relegated to discount bins. Orphan Black is getting a lot of love with an ongoing series.